June to August

See a comparison of the hardware used to run the displays between 2007 and 2017.

June2-3

This years Melbourne Mini was yet another excellent 2 days in Melbourne, with lots of new members attending this year. I only took a few images, and you can read more, as well as see the pictures of the Sydney and Melbourne mini on the Melbourne & Sydney Mini's page.

The ACL Strobes arrived yesterday from Fasteddy, and I started building them, with 91 of the 180 completed, programmed and tested.

These strobes are my first attempt at SMD soldering with an iron, and I am rather happy that things have gone so well. The strobes are only 18mm long and 12mm wide, with 6 surface mounted items, a transistor and LED as well, so the boards are rather packed.

The above image is of the strobes, showing the front and back of the boards. The small 6 pin items at top left are the PIC chips used on the rear of the board, and are the hardest to solder, but I am pleased that it
was not as hard as I thought it would be.

Here are 90 of the 91 completed strobes. Because they are programmed to ensure they are "random", so by programming the items with the 3 available codes, I have tried my best to ensure they will be relatively random when they are initiated. 45 of each of 2 codes are done.

The ACL Strobes are all done, tested and awaiting covers and wire before the next stage - placing them onto items. The covers will be delivered to me at the Sydney mini in July, so I can put the strobes away for a bit and relax, letting my eyes recover from the strain of building the strobes.

We had some more concrete put down this week, so it will take a while before we can walk into the shed without using the rollerdoors.

The Sydney Mini today was an absolutely brilliant day, with about 20 people attending the Sydney Fish Markets confrence room for what was an informative day of both talks and hands-on displays. A number of prizes were donated for the day, including an AVD controller, a J1Sys DMX to Pixel controller, 250 5V RGB LED's and 200 meters of 3mm heatshrink.

Well the shed lining is complete, and over 60 new hanging points have been added for storage of the lights for now and in the future. 2 more loads to the dump and a number of older household items sold off to free up space in the shed. You can read a bit more at the bottom of the 2012 Shed upgrades page.

Here is the latest Ray Wu order, almost entirely for the Icicles, although I expected to use all 3 power supplies for the icicles I ended up using just 1. The Pixel modules will be used later for the additional poles, and the 27 channel controllers
are for a few items, including controllers for the Window Silhouettes.

Pixicle section 1, the longest section along Gutter 1, was completed today. This is a run of 6 rows of 45 Pixels, connected at one end to the P12R controller and the other end to the first of two 4.5 meter long angled runs each containing 28 pixels long and 6 high. Additional power supplies were run to the end of the Gutter 1 strip due to the power requirements and cable length of such a long run. This has stopped any "pink" coloring of the far end when all pixels are on full white.

Pixicle section 2 (Angle 2) is complete, along with all connections for additional power, and to connect power and data from Gutter 1 and through to Angle 1 sections as well. Because of the length of the run a seperate power connection was provided from the P12R to the far end of the Gutter 1 as well as between Angle 1 and 2 to reduce the "Pink" coloring at the far end of the pixel row (Some 16.5 meters away from the controller). Once pixicle section 3 (Angle 1) is complete I will have a better idea of the voltage at the far end, but at this time I dont think I'll need to provide power to that end as well.

Pixicles are all done and tested, and the final figures actually suprised me in terms of current use. The old icicles 4680 lights drew 378 watts, and the 1002 new WS2801 5V Pixicles draw 139 watts on white.

Still a little bit of tidying up to do on the pixicles, and work out where to store them, but the basic setup is working fine, and thats the main thing.

3 of the 4 cases for the controllers used to drive the Window silhouettes were completed today. A single 27 Chan controller was mounted in a short length of 90mm conduit with cables coming out the base. I'll complete the last one tomorrow, along with the power supply unit for the 2 rooms.

One of 4 controllers for the window silhouettes. A 5V in, pDMX in and out and the 4 or 6 outputs (4 in this case) protrude from the base of these controller housings.

With luck I'll also get the ropelight items started this weekend, but I will have to see if I get time. I also have to find a paint to use on the ropelights.

A few things tidied up and finished today, including the power supply for the laundry window Silhouettes and the restringing of 2 led ropelight items.

This is the candle and Holley. Initially it was just all green and drew 79.2 Watts. The 24V DC Ropelight cut this down to just 11.81W, and because I used white ropelight I was able to spraypaint it to be more colorful, with red flame, blue base (yeah I know Holley is green but I dont have any green metalcast paint), and a purple glow around the candle. The colors dont show well on the camera, but believe me it looks way better than the old dull green item.

This is the old angel with one wing blown. It drew a massive 304.8 watts.

This is the new Angel. Both wings are illuminated for the photo, but the wings are on 2 additional channels allowing me to flicker the wings extremely easily. Again the green clothing went to blue in the final version, but the red trumpet and purple sash stayed the same colors. This 24V item draws a total of 37.68 Watts, a huge saving over the original.

A busy few days, with a big cleanup of the shed, the hanging up of all the pixicles so they are not laying on the ground, as well as completing a few minor upgrades to a few of the controllers.

This is the last of my 240V ropelight items being converted to LED Ropelight. This santa on a harley towing a trailer was initially a 720 bulb, 240V roplight item drawing some 321 watts, but after the upgrade it ended up being a 792 LED 24V item drawing just 46 Watts.

This was an old LED item from a few years ago and it is showing its age, with a few sections blown. Rather than restring it this year I decided to give it a little upgrade and paint a few sections so it looks a bit better, and rather than being just green and white, I think this looks much better.

A lot of tidying up of controllers, and thanks to a loan of a 27 chan board from Ben at Yagoona Lights I completed the LED RGB Ball controller box upgrade, and also added the strobes to the top of the firework item.